Eagledad

Sure, that is what forums are for. Our first pack meeting for the year typically was at a local park where we had a campfire. Since it was the first meeting of the year, our only ceremony was typically the Bobcats presentation. We started out holding scouts up-side-down because the was the common ceremony of the time and the scouts loved it. But when the National asked packs to stop the ceremony, I came up with my own. I tide a feather to some leather cord and made headbands. I presented each Bobcat with a headband when I gave them their patch. I made a few drums from coffee cans and asked the Webelos to beat them during the ceremony. I added a few words of wisdom and then sent the proud new Bobcats on their way. I kept a few headbands with me during the year for the late comers. I'm sure someone would be offended using a Native American theme, but I never heard one complaint and I was told many of the new Bobcats wore their feather headband to bed that night I was OCD about having fun for the scouts and keeping the meeting under an hour for the parents. The University of Scouting and roundtables are good at giving fun ideas, but not at keeping the meetings under and hour. So I took a lot of their ideas and modified them to work for my style. I'm not one of those adults who stands stiff for several minutes holding my sign up until everyone is quiet. We are talking about elementary school boys who need to release some energy after sitting in school all day. If scouts would rather talk to the scout next to them than what was going on up front, I took that as my problem and changed that part of the meeting. I wanted the scouts to be exhausted by the end of the hour. So I generally created calm moments by giving permission to stand up and scream during other moments. We also eliminated boring announcements and put them in a monthly news letter to save time. We did do the announcement song many times because the scouts loved it, but my announcements where just few funny jokes. Each meeting had a minimum of two skits (many times three), along with lots of one liner walk-on skits (usually by the Webelos), and at least one silly song. Pauses between agenda items generally take up the most time of a meeting, so we tried to eliminate as much as the dead time as possible. Each Den leader knew at the beginning of the year when their den was doing a skit, song, or whatever so they could be prepared. They knew before the meeting when to have their scouts ready to come up front. We only presented major badges and honors to save time. There was rarely a pause between agenda items, but if there was, I had a collection of silly jokes in my back pocket to fill in. If the scouts started getting loud because that part of the meeting was moving a little slow, I had a few tricks to get them jumping a screaming long enough to wear them down, then we got back on agenda. One other thing new Cubmasters need to learn is how to present last minute surprise awards. Rarely did I have a pack meeting where a den leader didn't surprised me with a scout who needed to be awarded with an unplanned badge or honor. That's the kind of stuff that can be passed along to pack leaders. Barry

No two Cubmasters are alike and we all own our own style. My goals for the pack meeting were to make if fun and keep it under an hour. We averaged between 90 to 140 Cub Scouts over the years I was a Cub Master, so I had to also be efficient. I like ceremonies because they lift up and celebrate honor. And they are fun. So the challenge is to create the ceremonies to fit in a 55 minute pack meeting. I created my ceremonies under themes. Except for the Bobcat, I rarely repeated themes to keep the ceremonies fresh. I still have my Bobcat pin given to me "up-side-down" in 1965. I love this scouting stuff. Barry

That will be interesting also, but it's nice to understand everyones perspective. Is you experience at the National level? Barry

From the writer of the article? That would be interesting. Barry

As I said, based on my experience, National's published membership numbers rarely made sense. And who knows how the data is being interpreted. A professional researching ALL the information might provide a more pragmatic result. I certainly would not put much value on opinions from this forum. The heart of the truth will work it's way to the surface in a year or so. Barry

As someone who used to work with National's membership numbers, rarely is what National publishes accurate to anything that makes sense. I do have a close friend in a Texas council who says their cub numbers are up this fall. I trust him, so the girls are some impact. But I learned to never trust National. Also, most of the opinions on this forum are more often than not emotionally biased. The research for the data used in the article may have been more professional with more pragmatic results. Barry

Our pack had between 100 to 140 cubs depending on crossovers, so to keep the pack meeting entertaining and under an hour, we only recognized the major recognition badges at the pack meetings and left the minor ones to the den leaders. We also handed out a monthly news letter at each pack meeting that listed each scout's other earnings as well. Bobcat is a biggy for us. There isn't any ceremony that can be done without someone being offended, it's the times we live in. One pack did a ceremony where they branded each scout by dipping a homemade branding iron of a Bobcat in washable paint and placing it on each scouts arm. The scouts loved it, but the CM said one mother was offended because it implied slavery. Shesh. I guess drawing a quick tattoo like their parents have is ok. Barry

As someone with experience in something like this, what about the units that don’t want to participate? And, who maintains quality control several generations of district leaders down the road? Couple of examples of the challenges that pop up. Barry

I like this idea a lot. I did a little (very little) research into this idea and the first challenge I ran into was the Scouts personal time. I believe all challenges can be solved, but that was all my one hour a allowed on this idea. Barry

Great references. It’s a lot for one course with the Scouts, but great material for the support team i.e. adults. My philosophy on troop junior leader training is everything should be learned by observing others. Training should only be required when bad habits aren’t changing, or to give vision or performance expectations. If training is required, remember Participants absorb only 30% of the presentations at best. 20% is more realistic. So, focus on the bad habits that aren’t changing. And limit the skills you are trying to teach or train to 3. If your program is just starting, than cut it down to the very basic and add additional skills a little at a time. I tell all our Scoutmasters to use the SPL and PL Handbooks to help keep your Patrol Method development consistent. Just like the Scout Handbook, just about everything a Patrol needs for a successful Patrol method program is in those 2 handbooks. Barry

Takes me back. Haircuts look 70s/80s. After a weekend of cooking fires, all my gear smelled like smoke. My mom made me take off my clothes in the garage. Women leaders and gas stoves were two changes that stood out to me when I came back in 1990. Cooking over a fire was a fun treat for my older sons Patrol. Barry

Community visibility is very important and scouting has been going in the opposite direction. My favorite community service was Scouting for Food because scouts had to personally meet the public at their front door and introduce themselves, then explain the service they were providing. 90% of our community was meeting scouts face to face experiencing scouts doing their best. Our scouts would meet afterwards for refreshments and they all had great stories of the people they met. We made it fun, but our scouts looked forward to it each year. No other event gave scouting near that much priceless exposure to the community and food collected required a couple of tractor trailers rigs to haul it away. Our district and council didn't understand the value of this activity and started to scale it down so it would take less time. They split it into two weekends. On the first weekend, the scouts (and volunteers) would stuff Scouting For Food bags in each mail boxes with instructions to leave the bags of food on the front door the next week to pickup. The scouts (and volunteers again) spent their next weekend picking up the food bags. They manage to almost completely eliminate the face to face meeting between the scouts and community , they forced the units to organize another weekend for adult volunteers help the scouts and the food collected was reduced to half because folks either forgot about leaving food on their door or their wasn't a cute cub scout asking in his quiet little voice for a donation. When I got on the council training team, I manage to sell the council into going back to the old method. But, local politics got in the way that same year and the scouts were kicked out of the Food collection program. If I were back, I would start by creating a District Scouting for Food drive. Next, I would recruit a scouter with the skills of social media and start publishing lots and lots of stories about what local units are doing in their community. Scouting is such a cool program but nobody sees it. I would use social media to bring the program to into the light. I would at a district local level push Scout Sunday. Provide ideas for the units three months a head of time to work their the churches to provide some kind of service on that day, or even campout on the Church grounds so the member could visit a campsite. Then I would ask the local government to help find and assign units to take care of the city by picking up trash at the local parks, schools and public roads. Scouts somewhere in town each weekend would be seen in uniforms serving their community. I would recruit a scouter with the skills for the District Activities Chair to coordinate troops to do some practice hiking and backpacking through town for the purpose of exposing the fun side of scouting. Set up camp on friday night at the CO, then get up the next morning for a five mile hike though town to camp at a local church. Get up the next morning and serve pancakes to the church members before service. Our Council did something pretty clever by doing a council level pinewood derby at the mall. Scouting fun, shouldn't we see that side. Maybe even consider doing a Camporee at a local park. How about canoe orienteering at a local lake we scouts have to cross the lake several times to hopefully end up at the right place. In ten years time, everyone in the community should have some knowledge of the scouting program and feel good about it's contribution to the community. Barry

I don't know how much of a religious person you think of yourself, but your last paragraph reads like a prayer. We've known you on this forum since you were a scout. I've enjoyed watching grow into the man you are today, and I am excited for the man you are becoming. Thank you for opening yourself to us and sharing a bit of your life. I must admit, through the years I have you found as inspiring to this forum as much as you have inspired those who are personally involve with your scouting ambitions and experiences. You truly live up to "Loving this scouting stuff". Barry

I can't see how suing could work for the parents. The CO has legal right to ask anyone to leave. But lets say the parents won, the CO simply dumps the program. Barry

This is a great idea for most troops. Our troop did something like this, but our patrols were dropped off at a patrol campsite on Friday night and then back packed 5 miles into the common campsite Saturday. I would even add to Buggies idea of adults picking up the Patrols Sunday on their way out of the area. Barry

Must all forums are generally negative because the format was built as a resource for seeking information. Think of how many forums you visited just to learn about a subject. Folks with successful experiences don't generally seek to brag to the world. We come here to seek solutions, so the causes of the situations get a great deal of attention. And a lot of the program has changed in the last 30 years. My passion is "boy run" "patrol method" scouting, so I came here in my early days to learn more about how to implement patrol method. Now I hang around to spread the fruits of my experiences. 20 years ago the Patrol Method forum carried easily 25% of the total Scouter.com discussions. Now, it gets maybe one a month. That in of itself is indicative of how the program has been changing. But, I'm so starved for a patrol method discussion, I might have to ask questions under a different name. Hmm, what name should I use. Kudu? No, no, that one sounds to much like a musical instrument. Beavah? No, no, that just sounds weird. I know BOBWHITE! Oh, wait? That name leaves a bad taste for some reason, I don't know why. Thinking, thinking........ Barry

We solved it with patrol inspections. If the patrol had dirty dishes, they were hit hard. The prize, I don't remember what it was, has to be worth effort. However, this may be indicative of a bigger challenge for you; your patrols are not bonding into a team. I'm sure this is a problem in other areas as well, it just hasn't risen to the level of adults yet. There a lots of reasons for patrols not bonding, but basically the activities your troop is doing isn't demanding a team effort. I'm guessing your troop activities aren't really requiring the patrols to function as patrols. Building a team starts out as a slow process, but once the scouts feel their contribution makes a difference to the performance of the TEAM, they start to kick in. Also, you leaders aren't being respected as leaders. They just don't have enough know-how (leadership skills) to move the patrol team forward. A big big part of respecting a leader is the leader respecting his position as a servant, not the top man who gives directions. Servant leaders have to attend the needs of the team. Team building requires goals for the team to work toward. Team building requires a leader who serves the team members so that they can function at their best. In my example, our goal was to force the patrols to work as a team to get their chores done before morning assembly. We used time as the force to make them figure out how to get the task accomplished before assembly. The troop may even need some training like showing how scouts who aren't assigned to KP are cleaning up tents and the campsite. There is always something to do. And the better the patrols get at inspection, the more difficult inspections should get. We also did this with breaking camp. We found that the scouts like to stop a store on the way home for candybars or ice cream. We force the schedule to allow only one hour to break camp. Six months later they were breaking camp in almost have the time. Don't stop at inspections, figure out how to make all your activities force the patrol to work together just to accomplish the task. Developing as a team develops better leadership skills as well as following skills. Barry

Good post. I have done the first three, number four is a little out there for me. We aren't looking for future priest in our program, just some consideration of a higher spirit. Someone here already mentioned it, but scouts who struggle with a higher being do tend to relate godly actions to character. As much as we hear all the bad things about religion, most people tend to think of god as something good. Good actions are godly actions. So, in my experience, scouts don't have much trouble finding an example or two of duty to god. I have never heard of a SM refusing a scout membership because he questioned belief in god. It happens a lot all the time because the natural process of maturing into biological adults is questioning ourselves and our beliefs. We have had many scouts with atheist parents. The parents know full well what scouting is all about and they want their kids experience the program. One of the parents is an Eagle Scout. I believe these are progressive in the true sense because they want their kids to choose their own path with religion. I'm honored they use the scouting program as part of that journey. Of course, not all religious people are good people or make good role models, and they should be filtered out of the program as well. I have many stories about scouts struggling with identifying with duty to god, but I remember one who had a terrible abusive home life. That was 25 years ago and my wife and I still talk about him. He found his safe place in the troop and loved it. He also brought a lot of baggage from his personal life, one of which was worshiping the devil. It was not a problem for us because considering this kids life, devil worshiping was the least of the challenges for either of us. And, we knew he was only doing it to lash out at his parents. But what a kid, he was so excited about scouting that he would get up a 5;00 am and try to get everybody to start the day. He jumped into the pool at summer camp for the swimmers test only to find out he didn't know how to swim. If it was sc scouting, he would dive in with all his heart. Any day camping with the troop was the best day of his life. He made everyone feel good to be a scout, but he made the adults feel good to give him a chance. Anyway, he and I were chatting one day and he told me he was looking for a church and wanted to know which churches the adults attended. Role modeling is with out a doubt the most important element for growth in scouting. Barry

OK Barry

If you are asking at the global level; history shows that the pendulum eventually swings away from extremist back toward god. If you are asking the scout level; scouts control their interpretation of god. Quote from previous post: Well, it's a bit more complex than that, but yes, determining right and wrong at cultural level has to come from god. I believe youth learn most of their discernment from observing the role models in their community. Humility is the source of intended good while pride is the source of intended bad. Man by nature is undisciplined and prideful and their selfishness drives them drive toward intended bad. On the other hand, teaches man to live by the intent of humility. A disciplined community of humble role models can only come from god guidance because man's natural selfishness and pride will never agree on a community of humble actions. Not without force anyway. Force is not humility. The creators of the Scouting movement thought much the same. Otherwise why would they give scouts the Oath and Law to direct their behavior if they already had the habits of determining right and wrong? There is a consistent stand of god, just not a constant following. As for duty to county, there are many actions that support duty to country, one being service projects. Also respect of the political system, armed forces and so on. Barry

What if he doesn't convert. First Class requirement: Demonstrate Scout spirit by living the Scout Oath and Scout Law. Tell how you have done your duty to God and how you have lived four different points of the Scout Law (different from those points used for previous ranks) in your everyday life. Will the scout be satisfied with experiencing only 7 of the 8 Methods of Scouting? BArry

Most humans are followers, so societal influence sets the standard of right and wrong. That is either god or the human who holds the biggest stick. God doesn't change, but man elects leaders every 4 years. Your generalizing doesn't advance an intellectual discussion. Shesh. Religion puts integrity and commonality in the virtues of the Oath and Law. Without religion, the scout is subject to whatever the SM feels is right or wrong in the moment. Without the consistent standard of god, the program of building character could not have last 110 years. And it certainly wouldn't have lasted as just a youth camping program. In 99 percent of scouting, the scout sets the religious benchmark of his experience. The one percent is usually the bad acting by adults we discuss on this forum. Barry

And what if the Muslim or Jewish parents of those youth demand your church start teaching their religion to all the youth? Can't be done. Atheist adults have no more desire for the present BSA Oath and Law than the teachings of your church. Mediocrity requires giving up the virtues that make the program special. Barry

Not really, not in the big picture anyway. The problem with religions on the micro scale is they let the devil get into the details. Why would they, they have the Oath and Law. Well, it's a bit more complex than that, but yes, determining right and wrong at cultural level has to come from god. I believe youth learn most of their discernment from observing the role models in their community. Humility is the source of intended good while pride is the source of intended bad. Man by nature is undisciplined and prideful and their selfishness drives them drive toward intended bad. On the other hand, teaches man to live by the intent of humility. A disciplined community of humble role models can only come from god guidance because man's natural selfishness and pride will never agree on a community of humble actions. Not without force anyway. Force is not humility. The creators of the Scouting movement thought much the same. Otherwise why would they give scouts the Oath and Law to direct their behavior if they already had the habits of determining right and wrong? Barry

It's risky using scripture out of context to justify a motive. Do not be deceived: “Evil company corrupts good habits. 1 COR 15:33 Do not be yoked together with unbelievers. For what do righteousness and wickedness have in common? Or what fellowship can light have with darkness? 2 COR 6:14 Whoever walks with the wise becomes wise, but the companion of fools will suffer harm. Proverbs 13:20 Jesus preaches to love all and not judge their eternity with God. But not to the detriment of loosing the relationship with God. When the program looses it's mission of "prepare young people to make ethical and moral choices over their lifetimes by instilling in them the values of the Scout Oath and Law", then it's gone too far. My opinion is the National has lost sight of the mission and change the program to the detriment of loosing the values of the program. Barry